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Get ready to start saying “Hey Google” to just about every smart device in your home. The list of smart home devices that can connect with Google assistant is now up over 5000. Today, Google announced that assistant is now compatible with all major connected device manufacturers in the U.S. The smart home component hookup list, which is still growing, includes everything you’d expect, like cameras, doorbells, locks, lights, and switches. It also works with security systems including recently added ADT, First Alert, and Vivin. For entertainment, Google Assistant will now connect to DISH’s Hopper family of receivers, and Logitech Harmony hub compatibility is coming soon.

Google’s been working quickly this year to expand the reach of Google Assistant. Four months ago only 1500 devices worked with Google Assistant, and now it’s 5000.

Google Assistant will soon be able to call restaurants and make a reservation for you

Published on May 9, 2018

Google calls this feature “Duplex” and it’ll roll out at some point in the future.

Google showed a crazy (and terrifying) new feature for the Google Assistant at its I/O developer conference. The Assistant will soon be able make calls for you to make a reservation — maybe for a salon appointment or to reserve a table at a restaurant that doesn’t take online bookings. For now, this was only a demo, but the company plans to start testing this feature with the Assistant in the summer.

In the demo, Google showed how you can tell the Assistant that you want to make a haircut appointment. The Assistant can then make that call, talk to whoever answers and make the request. In the demo, the Assistant even handled complicated conversations, adding small little hints (“ummm”) that make it sound natural. Even for calls that don’t quite go as expected, the Assistant can handle these interactions quite gracefully — though Google obviously only demoed two examples that worked out quite well.

Is Google's new AI a little too human-like? Kim Horcher and Jason Inman break it down. Give us your thoughts in the comments below!

“It came as a total surprise: the most impressive demonstration at Google’s I/O conference yesterday was a phone call to book a haircut. Of course, this was a phone call with a difference. It wasn’t made by a human, but by the Google Assistant, which did an uncannily good job of asking the right questions, pausing in the right places, and even throwing in the odd “mmhmm” for realism.”